Be sure to include your name, daytime phone number, address, name and phone number of legal next-of-kin, method of payment, and the name of the funeral home/crematory to contact for verification of death.

Exploitation of the orca whale is a heavy price for cheap tourist thrills

The country legend has canceled a coming performance at SeaWorld Orlando because of a CNN documentary called “Blackfish,” a profoundly disturbing account of the theme park’s exploitation of captive killer whales.

If you haven’t yet seen “Blackfish,” download it today. The film has been shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination, with good reason.

Others have also backed out, including Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. The rock group has roots in Seattle, which isn’t far from the site of brutal roundups of baby killer whales during the late 1960s and early ‘70s.

The early minutes of “Blackfish” present footage of one such expedition, and it’s heart-wrenching to observe the misery of the adult whales as the young ones are netted and loaded on ships. (Those that died were slit open, loaded with weights and sunk to conceal the evidence.)

One of those captured whales, snatched 30 years ago from the waters off Iceland, is in the Shamu extravaganza at SeaWorld Orlando.

Its name is Tilikum, the subject of “Blackfish.” At six tons, “Tili” is said to be the largest bull orca in captivity. It’s also one of the most volatile and emotionally damaged, involved in three human deaths.

The first occurred in 1991 at a cut-rate attraction in British Columbia. A young student worker was killed after she slipped into a tank holding Tilikum and two other orcas. The facility closed permanently after the tragedy, but Tilikum was purchased by SeaWorld and put on display in Orlando.

In 1999, a man slipped past employees and climbed into Tilikum’s tank at night. The next morning the man was found dead, mutilated and draped naked across the whale’s back. Cause of death was ruled to be drowning or hypothermia.

Then, in February 2010, Tilikum fatally mauled a veteran trainer, Dawn Brancheau, as horrified tourists videotaped the sequence. SeaWorld said the accident was Brancheau’s fault, implying that she somehow agitated the whale with her ponytail.

The accusation infuriated other trainers. After a hearing, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ruled that SeaWorld subjected its trainers to a hazardous environment, and ordered barriers erected to separate the whales from the employees.

Orcas are complex, highly intelligent mammals that in the wild would be traveling vast distances in close-knit family pods. Captive specimens spend their days in glorified guppy ponds performing stunts designed purely to amuse paying customers.

Significantly, there have been no documented fatal attacks on a person by a wild orca. In captivity orcas are responsible for several deaths and many injuries.

Despite a history of lethal violence, Tilikum remains a star at SeaWorld. That’s because he’s a very valuable asset.

The capture of orcas was banned by the United States in 1972, so theme parks rely on captive breeding for their babies. Tilikum is a major stud, having sired more than 20 offspring for the company.

Even with its trainers barred from swimming with the whales, SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. managed to take in record profits of $120 million last quarter. The company now waits for the outrage over “Blackfish” to subside, as it eventually did after the “Free Willy” films in the 1990s.

Meanwhile it’s working hard in court to overturn the OSHA decision and return to the old bareback-riding days. Said its lawyers: “Contact with killer whales is essential to the product offered by SeaWorld …”

After watching “Blackfish,” you’ll wonder if that’s really what you want your kids to see on their next vacation.

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